Date: c. 1986
Credit Line: Donated by Rae Alexander-Minter
Means of Accession: Donation
Made/Created
Artist
James A. Porter
Date made
1942
Dimensions
Dimension Description
Framed
Height
38 in
Width
32-1/2 in
Dimension Description
Unframed
Height
30-1/2 in
Width
24 in
Interpretative Labels
Label Type
Exhibition Label
Label
Born in Philadelphia, Virginia M. Alexander graduated in 1925 from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. After completing her internship in Kansas City, Missouri, she returned to Philadelphia in 1928 to set up an office of general medicine in the African-American community of North Philadelphia. Dr. Alexander soon limited her practice to obstetrics and gynecology and established the Aspiranto Health Home to provide care for mothers and babies in her modest three-story home.
After receiving her Master of Public Health degree from Yale School of Medicine in 1937, Dr. Alexander travelled to Scandinavia to study the government-hospital approach to public health.
Dr. Alexander returned to the United States, joined the teaching staff of Howard University Medical School, associated with the Freedman’s Hospital, and maintained a practice in the District of Columbia. She later served as a public health doctor for the United States government in the coal and iron mines of rural Alabama.
